I misspoke in an earlier post about file storage space on this website's hosting service at Hostgator.com as when I renewed, I upgraded the service from "Baby" to "Hatchling" and I/we now have unlimited storage, so large file attachments is not a problem. When I bought Baby plan 1 year agao I'm pretty sure it didn't include unlimited stoarage as it does now.

Frankly, I have had misgivings about leaving the forum format settings completely open to links to pictures on other websites. This is because CheeseForum.org is not a chat forum but a resource for all of us including Guests and if those files on other sites get moved or changed then those posts' links fail and this resource's effectiveness is reduced/lost. Thus I'd rather have forced everyone to upload their pictures directly onto CheeseForum.org, but probably too late now.

Options that I can see are:

I switch the post attachment size and count to infinite, this could result in some very long and multipage posts with very long display times, especially for those of us in the world with slower internet connections (in January todate we had 2,652 visitors/viewers from 74 countries around the world), it could also open the door wider to forum security issues from spammers etc.

I keep the post attachment size to infinite but display size to current 640x480 pixels or wider (to use up more screen space currently yellow to right of pictures) to reduce webpage load times (server still has to resize picture sent to the viewer) and switch count size to infinite, thus still have some very long post sizes. Note, for those who then wanted to see a bigger picture, they could just click on the small displayed 640x480 picture which would then take that User to the fullsize picture file, like happens on the website's pictures.

I keep the post attachment size to say 5 MB each attachment but display size to current 640x480 pixels to reduce webpage load times and keep count size at 4, to constrain post display length.

I leave as is to keep page load times quick.

I cut off links to external images and force all of us to upload their pictures to this forum for more secure long term record keeping (I just renewed hosting service for 3 years).

Please vote on above or add other option I haven't thought of. Please keep in mind that 1) as said, many people do not have broadband, and 2) we have averaged 75 posts per day for the last 2 months, which means that 1 year from today this forum could be six times larger than today with ~33,000 posts, assuming post frequency stays unchanged.

I'd especially appreciate some advice from the few IT Professional Members . . . thanks all, John.

I personally keep all my pictures on a my private site, and link them to yours.

I have also uploaded some directly to your site. I will say that my camera natively takes 10.2MP pics that are about 3.5MB in size. There have been about 3 occasions were I wished I could have uploaded the pictures in its full size. (re: Kadova mould drainage holes..)

I would think that if you could implement a display size limit to facilitate page load speed, but give us the discretion of uploading full size pictures on occasion and thumbnailing them, that would be optimal.

I think in both cases, you will need to be clear that your site should not be responsible for lost photos. So, if your site goes *poof*, I should not be out any pictures.

I can go either way, John, so I'll leave it to your discretion. The reason I have a photobucket site is because one of the other blogs I'm on decided that they were at risk because people were posting picture from websites that had not cleared copyright issues. So all pictures could only come from places like photobucket or flicker. I even had my own website, but those were the rules. Thus I have the photobucket site.

L.L. while you can attach any file type, I don't think you view videos from a forum post, thus no need to go above 5 MB per attachment, for now. But you have a good question and I'll check on a plug-in to this forum software for viewing videos.

Most of my forum members also use photobucket and it seems to work well and doesn't use all my "Baby Gator" resources.

Size is always something that is difficult. There are still many many people that not only do not have broadband or cable modems but that don't even have that option in there areas. So small size pictures are most beneficial for them. That being said ... There is no reason a second link to a LARGE picture can be be posted also to apease both types of members.

Debi, good point, many members are happy to upload to this forum, which is my preference as less lost links in case a remote file is moved.

Now that I've enabled larger attachments, most uploaded pictures are clickable, when mouse clicked they will display full size.

Thus I would like to propose that the image size displayed in the forum be reduced to ~75% of what they currently are thus making the pages with several pictures display faster. Members and Guests can still click on an image to see full size if want.

Hi Kai, I already made that change from my OP to option #3, big attachments and max visable images of 640 x 480, problem now is that for me pages with several images take a little long to load, making viewable images smaller would speed up page load time.